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Why aren't smart people happier?

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Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#511

Post by soared »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #460

My Dad once told me being smart was a curse. When he was stationed abroad with a load of meatheads, they would be happy spending their down time drinking beer and getting a tan. He would miss libraries of home. When people around him didn't care about the problems of the World, he saw the intractable nuance of the World's problems and felt a deep helplessness. Some of this was clearly depression, but I have to admit,…

A further level of intelligence may recognize the futility in worrying, accept the situation and your inability to impact it, and purposefully take the approach of a meathead.

A man’s search for meaning is an incredible book you may enjoy based on your comment. My strongest takeaway was that in situations where I cannot make an impact or control something, I still control how I react.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#512

Post by kaicianflone »

lisdexan wrote: post #344
kaicianflone wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - How clever of you. It’s also the world’s largest religion by far. That alone says something about how deeply the message of Jesus resonates across cultures and centuries. Billions of people have found truth, hope, and transformation in Him. Not because they were born into it, but because the story holds up when you actually look into it.

Religion is not my jam, but isn't it a little... crass to talk about your deity like that? The evangelical industrial-scale proselytizing always seemed kinda disrespectful to the whole "finding truth, hope, and transformation in Him", like god-almighty needed a used car salesman to connect with people. Plus, it's not the best moment to make this point considering that Mohamed is probably going overtake Jesus on the r…

I get that. I’ve felt the same cringe at times. The sense that faith is being sold instead of shared. The irony is that the heart of Christianity doesn’t need promotion. It’s supposed to be recognized in how people live, not in how loudly they talk.

For me, following Jesus has nothing to do with market share or population stats. If every chart in the world dropped tomorrow, He’d still be who He is. Faith isn’t about the numbers (Christianity has waxed and waned for centuries). It’s about the truth of one life, one death, and one resurrection that keeps changing hearts in every century.

The Church has made mistakes in how it presents Him, but the reality behind it, the Person Himself, doesn’t need a salesman. He just keeps finding people, quietly, the way He always has.

PS - Conversions in Latin America were deeply shaped by how God met people in their own culture and symbols. Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil are perfect examples. Moments when faith didn’t arrive through conquest like most believe, but through divine encounter.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#514

Post by nevertoolate »

knowitnone3 wrote: post #73
supportengineer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Bay Area, I feel surrounded by such people. They solve imaginary problems to get a promotion. But they are competing with thousands of other, equally smart people, to also get promotions. So it's non-stop change for no reason, and wasting resources.

No reason? You even stated the reason "for promotion". It's OK if you are not aiming for promotions but don't judge others when they do.

You are saying if promotion makes a person happy it justifies to spend a lot of resources on getting it even if it is harmful for the world (based on unstated ethical framework). GP says it is invalid resource usage - waste of human capital. I think he is hating on the game not the playa (based on unstated ethical framework)

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#515

Post by Aaargh20318 »

65 wrote: post #494
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far from it. But you only have to watch the news to see the world is a shithole and people are the worst.

The news is not real life. Perhaps go outside and see how friendly and pleasant things are.

> The news is not real life.

Wow. Has anyone informed the people getting killed in conflicts all over the world of this?

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#517

Post by Nathanba »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #327
alvah wrote: post #318

It's very difficult for most (not all) people to relate to others who are either significantly more or significantly less intelligent than them. So, for example (using IQ as a proxy), most people of average intelligence (~100IQ) would find it difficult to relate to those of ~65IQ, and equally difficult to find much in common with someone much more intelligent than them (140+IQ). Given power laws / bell-curve distribu…

Yes. A useful analogy is to imagine being an adult in a world populated only by children. Aside from the social alienation of it being hard to relate to others, there would be practical matters. The entertainment would all be tedious and predictable, all the rationalizations for bad behavior would be transparently self-interested. Enhanced capabilities for observation, prediction, and planning would make you a super-…

yes and those children have money, power and jobs and you have to navigate that somehow without sparking their very irrational, very easily sparked ire.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#518

Post by foobarian »

rkomorn wrote: post #509
foobarian wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> collapse of fertility in developed nations My pet theory is that once societies stop enslaving women, enough choose not to bear children to skew the stats below replacement level.

Or maybe we've made life so expensive (in time or money, but "time is money") for people even before having kids that they don't want to or feel they can't take on the extra load of being parents. Edit: this isn't a very different take from yours, TBH.

I think that is a significant factor as well - we can debate how related or not it is. I think in this case, there was a gradual ratcheting effect of how much work is extracted from people who would otherwise be contributing to childcare i.e. "the village" of elder people and women. No doubt this has a separate negative impact on the fertility rate. All IMO though, these are speculations without rigorous quantitative backing.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#519

Post by [deleted] »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #310
jebarker wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me this has 100% been the main source of unhappiness in my life. I wish nobody had ever told me how smart I was as a child. The reality was that I was above average but in an unremarkable collection of kids mostly. I’ve done fine in life academically and career wise but I’ll never live up to the expectations that were planted in my head. Thankfully you can get over this/yourself and let go of ego, ambition, achie…

Isn’t there a danger though of running into differences between oneself and others and concluding that the cause is oneself being “weird” and not the inherent difficulty of bridging the intelligence gap and correspondingly different ways of thinking? Like I could see a very bright kid ending up with low self esteem due to being different if they aren’t told that the differences may be due to their intelligence. Like…

[deleted]

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#520

Post by wraptile »

I'm not a scientist but seeing "IQ" and "happiness" be considered in any scientific manner and together is an instant pass for me.

What is more interesting that this pseudo science is so highly upvoted here which seems like white collar workers on HN are curious about their own mental health or just high on their own farts. This is not the way to find any meaningful answers.

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